Welcome to the blog of actress, writer, and storyteller, Bernadette Nason!

Monday, December 15, 2014

On the 14th Day of Advent, 2014...

As I head out this morning to begin a week's worth of school presentations of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I thought I'd share the little lexicon I distribute to help students understand the story a little better. This is also in the program for public performances.

A Christmas Carol -- Lexicon

Carol

A
song or ballad of joy celebrating the birth of Christ

Humbug

Nonsense

Parliament

The
legislature of Great Britain

Workhouses

Union workhouses:
home for the poor and destitute where people worked in exchange for room and
board; often riddled with disease and death

The City of London

Business
district of London

Knocker

A
device, usually metal and ornamental, attached by ahinge to a door,
used for knocking

A dowerless girl

Dickens deleted
the word “orphan” from this description.Apparently, Belle is in mourning (hence the black dress) due to the
death of her parents who have left her nothing.

Charwoman

A
servant hired by the day to do odd housework

Old screw

Slang
for a miser

Half a crown

Two
shillings and six pence (an eighth of a British pound in old currency)

Blithe

Happy

Next morning

St. Stephen’s Day,
the day after Christmas Day, called “Boxing Day” in England, when gratuities (or
Christmas boxes) are given to those who have provided services during the year.

Christmas bowl of smoking bishop

A
spicy punch like mulled wine (a popular tavern drink in the 18th century)

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My mum (in England) and I (wherever I happened to be living) used to write each other every week...snail-mail letters, of course. When we both got computers and email became popular, we wrote every day...about everything, from the weather to what our neighbors were doing, from the political situation to popular shows on the telly. When she died, not only did I miss my lovely mum, I missed our regular written conversations; and I lost my daily writing fix. Now I admit the messages were sometimes ridiculously banal but they were often hilarious and always fun to receive. So to start with at least, I'm going to imagine my blog is a note to my mum in the hope that you'll like reading it as much I liked reading her notes to me.